Perhaps I'll get a photo of the coin up sometime, until then, you all can use your imagination. In the center of the coin, was an Ark of the Covenant, and inscribed on it were some squiggles. I think they were supposed to be the hebrew letters for the name of God, or YHVH. Well, even if you don't know how to read the hebrew alphabet, you would be able to tell that they were really just squiggles in the general shape of the letters.
This phenomenon is fairly widespread in Freemasonry, below is an example from a Knights Kadosh Hieroglyph and the emblem for the 25th degree.
Generally, the Scottish Rite regalia isn't as divergent as the K.K. hieroglyph. But unfortunately, the hieroglyphic example is a much better representation of what the hebrew letters turn into after a few renditions. Here's a comparison between a line in the hieroglyph and what they were copying:
To give you a better idea of what I am talking about, following example is of my name written in a style typical of hebrew (or other) characters written by someone who does not know and use the alphabet.
And, this is the equivalent of what was written on the Grand Archer's coin:
As you can see, if you really squint and strain your eyes, you can tell that the last example says Sophia, but probably not at first glance.
Now, before all you gentlemen are saddened or offended (I hope not!) that I am insulting those who founded modern masonry because they had little knowledge in the forming of hebrew characters: let me assure you, they were hardly alone! Judaism, along with the Greeks and other ancient civilizations have been quite the fad with the type of people who would form masonry off and on throughout the centuries.
The Alchemists, the whole of renaissance magic, Masonry, Mormonism, 19th century Protestants and so on. They all created artifacts with hebrew characters on them with more or less accuracy (usually less).
Discrepancies creep in when one person copies genuine characters, and another copies that and another copies that until the text is unreadable.
My point though is this, If the craft is to be preserved, fidelity to the meaning must be maintained. You are using words and symbols which were (hopefully) carefully chosen for their symbolic meaning. If, over the years you allow these words to become distorted, then what will there be for the younger generation to learn? The secrets of many ancient cultures were lost this way, through the slow corruption of well meaning adherents who did not understand what they had, or what they stood for.
